August. 1929 



E \' O L U T I O N 



Page Nine 



Our Growing Knowledge of Man 



By ALES HRDLICKA 

 Reprinted by courtesy of The Outlook 



An endeavor to account for man's 

 origin has been universal. Study of the 

 myths and beliefs of different people^ 

 .shows that there was no tribe, no eth- 

 nic group, no religious unit, that did 

 not have some theory, however crude, 

 as to how man came into existence. 

 And before science came in, once an 

 idea became set in any group, it con- 

 stituted a dogma which effectively 

 stopped or greatly retarded further 

 thought in that direction. Religious 

 dogmas, being directly associated with 

 the deities (revelations), became par- 

 ticularly powerful. Had it not been 

 for the Biblical account, especially, 

 current thoughts about man's oi'igin 

 and his knowledge of himself as w^ell 

 as that of the rest of the living nature, 

 would have developed much earlier. 



An analysis of the conceptions 

 reached on the subject before the ad- 

 vent of the scientific period, shows that 

 the numerous forms group themselves 

 into three main classes. They are: 

 CI) wholly thaumaturgic, or (Z) partly 

 supernatural and partly natural, or (?l^ 

 essentially natural. 



The first class of theories regard 

 man's origin as due to purely super- 

 natural agencies and means, without 

 speculating as to the details. Manv of 

 the anthropogenies of primitive tribes 

 of today. to,gether with those of some 

 of the earlier Greeks, earlier Romans, 

 and one of the versions of the Genesis, 

 are or were of this nature. 



The second class of views is sub- 

 divisible into two series. In the first, 

 common to the Egyptians, all the 

 Semitic peoples of .Asia Minor, some 

 of the Greeks fthe Hephaestus myths') 

 and to the second version of the 

 Genesis, man's body is made of earthly 

 materials (clay, bone, blood, etc.). with 

 the life and soul added supernaturallv. 

 In the second subclass of these beliefs, 

 common to some of the American In- 

 dians and others, man originates super- 

 naturallv from subterranean or recent- 

 ly emerged mythical birds or other 

 animal forms. 



The third, naturalistic, or scientific 

 category of theories may aeain be 

 separated into two subclasses. The 

 first, held bv some of the early Greek 

 and other philosophers, such as Aris- 

 totle, and surviving largely to this day. 

 teach a natural, evolutionary origin of 

 the body, but believe in a distinct and 

 higher origin of the "soul:" while the 

 others claim an evolutionary origin of 

 all man's attributes, phvsical and in- 

 tellectual. The great difticultv in both 

 these lines is the lark of a definition of 

 the concent of "soul." Man has never 

 known clearly and does not know yet 

 just what is his "soul." 



From the earliest time this tlrrd 

 class of views as to man's origin dif- 



fered widely from both preceding ones 

 in being based on actual observation. 

 In the beginnings, in the time of .\nax- 

 imander and his followers, the obser- 

 vations were limited, imperfect und 

 empirical; but men w-ere gradually rec- 

 ognizing the close analogies between 

 man and the rest of the organisms 

 which surrounded him in the world. 



True scientific observations by 

 learned men, however, and deductions 

 on the problem of human origin began 

 during the latter part of the Eight- 

 eenth Century, and hence long before 

 Charles Darwin. They attended on 

 one hand the work of the anatomist 

 and physiologist, on the other that of 

 the naturalist and the geologist-paleon- 

 tologist. 



Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, 

 Treviranus, Gall, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 

 and a good number of others, headed 

 eventually by Lamarck, and later Wal- 

 lace, precede Charles Darwin; but it is 

 the latter w'ho, in 1871, in his "Descent 

 of Man," gives the first comprehensive 

 treatise on the subjct. 



Buffon, Erasmus Darwin (grand- 

 father of Charles) and above all La- 

 marck, explained evolution by a grad- 

 ual inheritance of "acquired characters'' 

 or structural adaptations, brought forth 

 by environmental conditions. For 

 Charles Darwin and his close follow- 

 ers, the essential factor in evolution, 

 human or animal, was "natural selec- 

 tion" or, as Herbert Spencer termed 

 it, the "survival of the fittest," work- 

 ing with the normal variation of every 

 organism and of every part. Organ- 

 isms vary; they also increase in num- 

 bers; the numerical increase leads to 

 competition and struggle for existence; 

 and in this struggle the most "fit" and 

 best adapted to their environment 

 survive and adv;.nce' the group in their 

 direction. 



Since Lamarck and Darwin, the 

 theory of human origin by evolution 

 has been generally accepted by scien- 

 tific men and enriched by a whole 

 realm of observations and proofs, until 

 what had originally been a theory has 

 become one of the best documented 

 pages of human knowledge. 



At present, the essentials of man's 

 origin through evolution are estab- 

 lished facts. Still uncertain are many 

 of the details of the highly complex 

 processes involved, the exact sources 

 from which man developed and the 

 causes and ways of his differentiation; 

 but these do not affect the soundness 

 of the main conclusion. 



Meanwhile science is endeavoring to 

 solve more definitely the many still 

 more or less obscure by-problems of 

 human evolution. The efforts are part- 

 ly a patient intensive search for ad- 

 ditional material evidence, partly spec- 

 ulation. It is the latter that is respon- 



sible for the various theories as to 

 man's precise ancestry, the exact time 

 of man's appearance, the true cradle- 

 land of humanity and the actual modes 

 of human evolution; theories that, be- 

 cause of their variance, are by many 

 mistaken for uncertainties of the main 

 subject. It is such differences that 

 may be seen in the recent writings of 

 Osborn, Gregory, Clark and others. 

 They depend on the basis and angle 

 from which the still imperfectly ex- 

 plored field is contemplated and on 

 other individual conditions. Similar 

 human gropings after truth, before it 

 has been fully revealed in material 

 facts, are common to all branches of 

 science. They are the useful "working 

 hypotheses" of science, lasting until 

 they are shown to be erroneous, or 

 until replaced by better conceptions. 

 They help toward the eventual reach- 

 ing and crystallization of human 

 knowledge. 



Already, however, the cultured man 

 and woman are becomina less curious 

 about their remote ancestors, less con- 

 cerned about the past, and are direct- 

 ing their attention to the next pro- 

 blems, which are man's further differ- 

 entiation in the nresent, with the prom- 

 ises and indications for the future. 



OFF WITH THT^'M FALSE 

 WHISKERS 



The Reverend Professor Leander S. 

 Keyser, D.D., in "Bible Champion," 

 May. 1929, page 226: 



"That vehement propagandist, the 

 magazine called Evnhition . . . tells 

 us some of the authors and publish- 

 ers of text-books are keeping evolu- 

 tion in their books under cover in 

 a decentive way . . . cut out the word 

 'evolution' but inculcate {sic!) the 

 doctrine in disguised form. Some 

 people pronose simply to suhstitute 

 the word- 'development' which may 

 be used to describe the same doc- 

 trine. Let the good people of Ten- 

 nessee, Arkansas and Texas be on 

 their guard . . . People should re- 

 member that it is the theory of evo- 

 lution that is not to be taught, by 

 whatever name it poses." 

 Now the curious thing about this 

 passage is that "the theory of evolu- 

 tion" is entirely legal for anybodv to 

 teach all he likes anywhere in North 

 .America. The only thing forbidden in 

 "Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas" 

 (the monkey states really are Tennes- 

 see, Arkansas and Mississippi) is the 

 Hcsccnt of man. If. then, "authors and 

 publishers of textbooks" do not choose 

 to exercise their legal ri'-'ht to include 

 "the theory of evolution" itself under 

 that particular name, or for that mat- 

 ter if they do. why should the Rever- 

 end Professor Keyser interfere with 

 thoni- They are all within their rights 

 under the actual statute. 



Hasn't the Reverend Professor read 

 his own fool law? Or does he think 

 that o'her people haven't? E. T. B. 



